Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Decisions... Decisions...

Lets make a decision. We have two options one is easy the other is hard. Which do we choose? Well we can choose the easy one because it is the easy way out or we can choose the hard one because we like the challenge. Obviously what we would choose depends heavily on the circumstances for which we are making the decision. Things such as who is involved, the costs, the benefits, the short term and the long term will play a huge role in what we opt to do. Lets say this decision we effect an unknown number of people, some you know and other you will never meet. It has the potential to affect then in different ways. For some your decision will ruin their life for others it will be the best things that ever happened to them. Really the only difference between the easy and hard option is how the costs and benefits will be distributed. The principle individual who will be effected by this decision is yourself. However, you do not get to choose to have this be the best thing ever for you. Rather you get to choose between the different levels of chaos you will endure. So in the end this decision is about others. What option is really best will always come down to an individual assessment of what is right. But it does not come down to what is right for you but right for every one. I suppose that is the noble outlook. We should be striving to make sure that what we choose is going to, in the least, do as little harm as possible. Trying to assign benefit would be nearly impossible. Even if I were to give someone a million dollars. Even if they were my closest friends. I would struggle to be certain that they were really benefiting. Sure their income has increased and they can consume at a previously unknown level but is that really better. Would it have been better for them to have earned the money themselves? Or even declined my offer? Maybe they would have been worse off emotionally and socially if they accepted the money. In the end I suppose we can never know if a decision will benefit us or others until we see the end of everything. So when you die you will know if that extra slice of cheese cake was a good decision. There will be numerous externalities to what ever you have chosen to do. In the end we need to choose what is right even if it is hard. Because it is the RIGHT THING TO DO. It may cost us time, money, friends but if it was right then it could never really be wrong.

2 comments:

Not to be ...depressing? But in economic terms, is doing the right thing always the right thing? I mean, what if its costs more, degeneates personal, and by extension, nationl wealth, and what is it creates so mny neative extranalities it gets banned creating a government mandated price floor that decreases supply of a good or service which sky rockets the demand, creating a unintended consqequence of a shortage! Putting Multiple people out of work, causing unemploment to douple whic means inflation becomes necessary, but the workingman's dollar still decreases in purchasing power putting him and his faily to work at wage that is substationally below a decent living wage? After this he is forced to seek housing in a rent control unt where he or she is subect to humilating interviews where they are rated on ow good their ass looks in their jeans because, hey, the land lord can make a decidion using any discrimination he or she chooses! I think I covered it all...O...And when he asks for a raise, said working man recieves it and the price of his compnaies marketed good or service increases and then everyone else is mad at said man...Anyway, I guess my point is that hind sight is twenty twenty so you can't ever know if you are doing the right thing, can you? I also genuinely feel that this is the case with most politicians..tey start out well intentioned but then get sucked into a web of lies and bribes in order to survive. This is n excuse for crewing over the population that elected them in good faith, but it is honestly what I think happens..Sorry is this is irrelevent or rude...I've been sick with the flu this week and I am crabby